DEIVATHIN KURAL # 43 (Vol # 5) Dated 24 Aug 2011

DEIVATHIN KURAL # 43 (Vol # 5) Dated 24 Aug 2011

(These e-mails are translations of talks given by PeriyavaaL of Kanchi Kaamakoti Peetam, over a period of some 60 years while he was the pontiff in the earlier part of the last century. These have been published by Vanadi Padippagam, Chennai, in seven volumes of a thousand pages each as Deivathin Kural. Today we are proceeding from the last para on page No 260 of Vol 5 of the Tamil original. The readers may note that here in 'man/he' includes 'woman/she' too mostly. These e-mails are all available at http://Advaitham.blogspot.com updated constantly)
125. Everybody knows the words, ‘Amba and Mata’ as they are synonym for the English word Mother. But a child can pronounce ‘Amma or Amba’ better than any other words. Mata is grammatically correct in Sanskrit and Hindi, like ‘Thaayaar’ in Tamil. The Tamil word Thaayaar for mother seems to endow a higher status to her. The Devi, who is the Parameshwara’s Patni or consort, is referred as ‘Amman’, closer to the child’s way of addressing the mother. Normally in Tamil, words of the male gender of the species only end with an ‘n’, like Thalaivan, Veeran and so on. For a child’s language there is no grammer. Thus Amma becomes endearingly changed into Amman. (Of course the English speaking children use another variation ‘Mummy’, which we know has another meaning of a mummified cadaver!) Similarly for Father, there are the words ‘Appa’, ‘Daddy’ and ‘Papa’. So generally, Siva Dharma Patni is called Amba or AmbaaL. Maha Vishnu’s Patni is referred with a little more respect as, ‘Thaayaar’! Their Garbagruha (sanctum sanctorum) in the temples are referred as the Amman Sannidy and Thaayaar Sannidy respectively.
126. In the Sanskrit dictionary ‘Amara Kosa’ it is mentioned similarly, with a little bit more respect for the consort of Maha Vishnu as, ‘Indira, Loka Mata,’ for the Thaayaar, whereas the consort of Siva is mentioned a little bit more endearingly with liberty, as ‘AparNa, Uma, Parvathy, Durga, Mrudaanee, Chandika and Ambika; decorating the word Amba a little more as Ambika! Since we go to Lakshmi for obtaining wealth, she is possibly addressed more respectfully as we would a wealthy lady or Matron as ‘Thaayaar and Mata’! Having said, ‘maata: anisam kalayantu naanye’, our AachaaryaaL calls her ‘Saroruhaakshi’, meaning that her eyes are like the lotus flower. The Lord Vishnu is known as ‘PuNdarika Akshan’ also meaning that he is having eyes like the lotus; that is the oneness of the divine couple I suppose!
The Benefits Obtained by Doing Namaskaaram.
127. When AachaaryaaL says that ‘to do Namaskaaram to you is good enough for me’, he must have thought that even saying that may not be considered to be sufficiently humble. His statement that to do obeisance of Namaskaara to you is enough for him, could be construed to mean, ‘You see I am matured enough. Though you are known as Ashta Lakshmi, as the Goddess for eight different avenues of prosperity, instead of putting you on a high pedestal and do Namaskaara to you with utterly sincere subservience, if I stand unconcerned and do Namaskaara on my own and say that I get full satisfaction by that, it would sound too complacent on my part!’ So when he says that through this very act of Namaskaara, he gets so and so benefits, which is good enough for him that means Goddess Lakshmi is granting all those benefits, which he is humbly receiving. What are those benefits?
128. ‘SampatkaraaNi’ – It gives abundant wealth. ‘Sakala Indriya nandanaani’ – Gives all sorts of happiness to all the senses of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching; satisfies the hunger and thirst, and gives a sense of fulfilment to the mind! ‘Saamraajya daana nirataani’ – Her Grace is fully actively involved in granting Governorship of huge Empires to the devotees. Lalita Sahasranaama also calls her, ‘Raja Rajeswari – the Empress of Kingdoms; Rajyadaayinee – endower of Governorship; and Raja peeta nivesita nijaasritaa – who enables her true devotees to ascend to the thrones’ and such. Aachaaryaal must have thought that in addition to other reasons, only when you talk about worldly and material gains, general public will be attracted towards being devoted. So having described these gains in the first part of the sloka, he says that ‘tvad vandanaani’ – your Namaskaaram-s, grant all this. The moment he said this, he got another idea!
129. Having said that one would get a lot of wealth, satisfaction for all the senses, body, mind and emperorship, by doing Namaskaara; if he stops with, ‘the Namaskaara-s that would give all this come to me’; that would not be a suitable prayer for a man like Sankara AachaaryaaL. So he stopped for a moment. For a man like him, any cogitation, hesitation or deliberation is only for a fraction of a second. Not even that! As they are forming the ideas into words and words into sentences of one line, the questions will be answered and doubts cleared. As he started the second part of the sloka with ‘tvad vandanaani’, AchaaryaaL who felt that he seems to have over stated the material and worldly benefits, at the speed of light he put in a phrase, ‘duritotddaraNodyataani’. Having listed three major gains for doing Namaskaara before the word ‘tvad vandanaani’, after that word he added this one advantage which is spiritually satisfying. In poems, unlike in prose you can put and interpolate the words between the earlier and later part of the sentence, in any number of ways. Actually to do so with beauty, by itself is an art! That too in the Sanskrit language there is more freedom for connecting the words in many intricate ways. So without corrupting the poetical form and expression of the sloka he put in there, ‘tvad vandanaani duritotddaraNodyataani’. People like Aachaaryaal have poured out with poetical ebullience in a state of high inspiration within which, when we analyse we come across nuggets of brilliance satisfying our intellect and sense of appreciation!
130. One Correction of Printed Version of the Poem. I have seen some printed versions of this poem ‘Kanaka Dhaara Stava’ and noticed that many of them have an error of printing or editing, this particular phrase. Instead of the phrase ‘duritotddaraNodyataani’, it is given as ‘duritaa haraNodyataani’. This needs to be corrected. ‘Duritam’ means sin. Nowadays in music they say ‘durita kaalam’ for the speed of singing or playing the musical instrument. Here the word should be ‘Drutam’ which means ‘fast’ and which is being mistakenly mentioned as ‘duritam’. In Sanskrit there is another word ‘Tvaritam’, which also means ‘speedily’, which could also be possibly the reason for the mistake in editing / printing!
131. As I said, ‘duritam’ means sin. Whenever we do ‘Sankalpa’ before any intended action, we say “durita – kshaya – dwaara Parameshwara preetyartam”. ‘To please Parameswara is our aim. Our sins prevent us from obtaining ‘Easwara preeti’. When our sins are cancelled out, that is when our ‘duritam’ is ‘kshayam’ (sins are nullified), that very process enables us to be worthy of receiving Easwara preeti! The phrase ‘duritotddaraNodyataani’, will separate into, ‘durita aacharaNa udyataani’. The words ‘haraNam’ and ‘aaharaNam’, mean the verb cancelling and the noun cancellation; like the words ‘bharaNam’ and ‘aabharanam’ mean wearing (verb) and jewels (noun). So by the Namaskaara-s that we do to Maha Lakshmi, our sins are cancelled out!
132. Though as per the dictionary, the words ‘haraNam’ and ‘aaharaNam’ have grammatically close and similar meaning, in practice, ‘haranam’ has come to mean cancellation and ‘aaharaNam’ has come to mean ‘to fetch’. Please note that ‘haraNam’ is reinforced by the opposite meaning by using the prefix ‘abha’ to become ‘abhaharaNam’ (like in ‘Sita abhaharaNam’ to mean ‘snatching away Sita’)! So, here the prefix ‘aa’ in front of ‘haranam’ instead of giving an opposite meaning simply reinforces. So where is the mistake in printing or editing? I said so because, instead of saying ‘duritaa haraNodyataani’ we get a better meaning when we say ‘duritotddaraNodyataani’, to mean, ‘durita uddaraNa udtyataani’, using instead of the word ‘aaharaNa’, the word ‘uddaraNa’!
133. ‘UddaraNa’ will extend to become ‘uddaaraNam’. This essentially would mean ‘to pluck it and remove’. What is lying on the surface can be just removed or cancelled out or simply swept clean with a sweeper. But what is deep rooted has to be plucked from its roots. When we say that Sri Krishna did ‘GovardanoddaraNam’, without knowing its full meaning, that he put his hand underneath and lifted it and celebrate his, this action. But what he did was to pluck the hill from its embedded roots and held it high.
134. We call the repair, renewal and renovation of dilapidated temples as ‘JeerNoddaaraNam’. ‘JeerNam’ means what is in ruins. So what do we have to do? Is it enough to superficially give it some cosmetic make up and sweep it clean? Or do we have to first completely destroy it and then rebuild? We may have to do that also partially. But mostly we may have to rebuild it from its foundations. What is in ruin on top would mean that the structure has been shaken from its foundations. Trees and plants could have sent deep roots inserting themselves through the construction. To remove all such stones, trees, plants and roots of theirs and then to reconstruct is ‘JeerNoddaaraNam’ which is not simple renovation! Our sins are deep rooted into our very consciousness and being. We are to be not only rid of our sins but plucked out from the roots! We are coming to that!
(To be continued)
Sambhomahadeva.